EMMC monopolizes high end embedded market

Release date：2014-07-29   Views：2503

China's flash memory market on July 28, 2014

1、 Development of mainstream embedded storage product EMMC

1.1. Specification transfer: v4.51 is popular and V5.0 has begun to be listed on a large scale

The EMMC specification developed from JEDEC v4.2 in 2008 to JEDEC v4.5, and the theoretical writing speed was increased to 200MB / S. in October 2013, JEDEC Solid State Technology Association released V5.0 specification (jesd84-b50), with the maximum write speed increased to 400MB / s. The significant improvement in V5.0 specification has greatly increased the market expansion of high-end mobile equipment.

The v4.41 products of all suppliers in the market are in the state of stop production or have stopped production, and the main specifications have reached v4.51 or even V5.0 specifications for mass production. China flash market network has also stopped v4.41 product market quotation since May.

At the end of 2013, Samsung has begun to sell the V5.0 standard EMMC products on the market scale, including the latest 19nm TLC EMMC, which is also the V5.0 standard. Other EMMC suppliers, such as Toshiba, Shandi, Meguiar and SK Hynix, focus on the production of v4.51 standard EMMC, and are gradually turning to the stage of supply in the scale of V5.0 standard EMMC. At present, the domestic manufacturer jiangbolong is still based on v4.51. In the v4.41 era, the reading speed of 20-30mb / S is the normal speed, but in the v4.51 era, the reading speed of all manufacturers generally reaches 40-50mb / s, even as high as 70-80mb / s, which greatly improves the experience effect of products, especially the startup time and program startup time.

In addition, UFS version 2.0 has been released to provide greater link bandwidth to improve performance, extend security features, and further reduce power consumption. UFS 2.0 has a maximum transmission speed of 1.2g bytes per second. Such high-speed performance will not really be used in the EMMC market in the short term, but will be applied in the SSD market first. Although major mainstream manufacturers have proposed to launch UFS 2.0 products in the second quarter of 2015, the only CPU that can support UFS 2.0 is the Qualcomm snapdragon 805, and the cost of supporting UFS 2.0 master control is much higher. It can be predicted that the UFS 2.0 specification in 2015 will not become the mainstream in the market temporarily due to the lack of CPU support.

1.2. The market is booming: TLC EMMC has gradually entered the mainstream

By the end of 2013, only two manufacturers in the market could mass produce TLC EMMC, namely Samsung, the leader of EMMC industry, and jiangbolong, a domestic chip company. With the help of its strong EMCP products, Samsung has also opened a gap in the low and medium-end mobile phone market, and started mass production and sales of TLC EMCP. Before that, the most important market of single TLC EMMC products was the medium and low-end communication flat panel and the low-end Ott box.

TLC EMMC market acceptance is low, and the main challenge is that TLC flash has a partial gap with MLC flash in terms of its own erasure life times and flash read-write speed due to technical reasons. However, with the maturity of TLC flash technology, this gap is gradually narrowing. Even in some technical details, the quality of EMMC using TLC flash is better than that of some MLC EMMC. At present, only Samsung and Toshiba are the most mature TLC flash technologies, which are also the strongest suppliers in NAND flash market. In 2014, all manufacturers began to announce the R & D and mass production plans of TLC EMMC.

First of all, Suntech announced the mass production plan of TLC EMMC from May to June with the latest process of 19y TLC NAND flash, which is controlled by silicon motion (SMI), the leader of international control chip. The original plan was to start large-scale sales of the product in May. It is said that in the second quarter, it has passed the preliminary certification of several application processor (AP) manufacturers, such as Qualcomm, MediaTek, Quanzhi, etc., but the thunder is small. As of the end of June, no large number of TLC EMMC products have been sold in the market. According to market feedback, the main product capacity of SMD TLC EMMC is 16GB, which is estimated to be related to the demand of major international customers. It is estimated that sandhi actively avoided the low-end 4 / 8GB EMMC market, which is also related to the difficulty of mass production technology of low-capacity TLC EMMC, the high requirements of Shandi company on product gross profit and the avoidance of falling into price war.

Ksi, a Taiwanese module manufacturer mainly invested by Kingston and Qun, also announced its TLC EMMC mass production plan to customers in the second quarter, and began to send samples to customers in June, with the main capacity of 8 / 16GB. Ksi has informed the terminal customers that they hope to switch to TLC EMMC as soon as possible. It is expected that the products will be in mass production by the end of the third quarter. In addition, Toshiba has also released its own TLC EMMC plan, but I don't know whether it is due to the main control or the product. The market has not seen Toshiba TLC EMMC client sample delivery and mass production.

1.3 large capacity upgrade: 8GB has become the mainstream, and 16GB has gradually become a star product

With the rapid popularization of Android 4.2 operating system in the market, customers need to integrate more app applications and backup materials in their products, so the demand for storage is increasing. At present, 8GB has gradually become the standard configuration in the market, and the demand of 16GB is rapidly penetrating at the growth rate of more than 50% per quarter, especially in the brand tablet market. The main models of four core or eight core in the brand tablet market are mainly equipped with 16GB storage. Since May, the price inquiry of 16gbemmc in the market has obviously increased. According to reliable information, the mainstream configuration of several major bidding projects at the end of the year is mainly 8 / 16GB.

In the 4GB EMMC market, in the current consumer product field, the mainstream suppliers are actually only the TLC EMMC products of Samsung and jiangbolong. Due to the price sensitivity in the tablet Market and box market, the price of 4GB MLC EMMC is at least 15% higher than that of TLC EMMC, which has obviously lost its competitiveness. However, in some industry markets, especially smart TV and Ott boxes at carrier level, customer costs are very sensitive and require more conservative quality assurance. 4GB MLC EMMC still has part of the market, but the demand is gradually shifting to 8GB.

1.4 application penetration: EMMC accelerates popularization

In addition to the most low-end WiFi tablet and Shanzhai box market, TSOP NAND is still used as the main market, and EMMC is almost one-sided in the market application. There are several main reasons

1. In terms of strategy, all the original chip manufacturers mainly promote EMMC, and the main chip platform supports EMMC better and better. The reference design has added support for EMMC, mainly because EMMC is a standard interface, which can greatly speed up the debugging and mass production progress, and make the products and morning market.

2. The quality of TSOP NAND is uneven, and the yield and batch quality problems often appear in the market, which makes customers unbearable. In the market, some brand customers of foreign terminals have made clear that they are not allowed to use flash products packaged by TSOP. However, in the first half of the year, EMMC was chosen instead of TSOP NAND for the configuration of the Thai government's bid, Europe's, and the United States.

3. EMMC continues to reduce prices, and the price gap is getting smaller and smaller with the mainstream TSOP NAND. Take 8GB as an example, the TSOP NAND of each original factory is about $3.0, and the lowest price of tlcemmc in the market has reached about $3.35, with a gap of about 10%. However, the gap of 4GB is smaller. The TSOP NAND of each original factory has been around $2.2-2.3, and the lowest price in TLC EMMC market has been less than $2.4, and the gap is within 5-10%.

4. With the continuous upgrading of the main chip, the terminal customers have higher and higher requirements for product stability and comprehensive performance, and the use of EMMC can provide better technical support.

In terms of market application, even in the price sensitive markets such as low-end tablet and Ott network player box, due to the improvement of quality requirements of terminal customers, some EMMC products have been adopted. Domestic main chips such as Quanzhi, Ruixin micro, Jinchen and Heli support TSOP mlcnand by default. Low end customers still prefer TSOP MLC NAND based on cost considerations. However, the TSOP NAND resources in the market are uneven, and the supply is more unstable. The price of the original manufacturer is also rising all the way, which affects the terminal buying gas. In order to further reduce the cost, some low-end customers are still choosing white brands and even using fake TSOP NAND from unknown sources, which brings many hidden dangers to product quality. The market is slowly changing. In the past, the reference designs of domestic chip platforms all refused to design into EMMC, and felt that the cost was too high. In 2014, almost all new platforms of main chips added EMMC reference design by default.

In the fields of communication flat panel, vehicle GPS, intelligent digital TV, industrial control, game console, e-book, including medium and high-end four core flat panel and Ott box customized by operators, more and more customers hope to have better performance and better stability of high-performance and cost-effective solutions. Basically, EMMC is the only flash storage solution by default.

1.5 supply Prosperity: a hundred flowers bloom

As all manufacturers are optimistic about EMMC, the investment is further increasing, and the market structure of EMMC suppliers has changed a lot. In the middle and high-end market of MLC, Samsung and Toshiba continue to maintain an absolute advantage and occupy the main share, followed by sandhi. This part of the demand is mainly concentrated in Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Coolpad, Xiaomi and other brand mobile phone markets. Because Toshiba has no DDR products, Toshiba is more active in MLC EMMC quotation than Samsung and Sandi, once occupying a major share in some large factories. In the market of smart TV and other industries, Toshiba also occupies a major share due to the high price of 4GB MLC EMMC such as Samsung and micron. However, SK Hynix and Meguiar performed mediocre in the single EMMC market, and few big customers used it. In the medium and low-end market, due to the advantages of low price and localized service, domestic manufacturer Jiang Bolong has grown rapidly in market share, and has gradually replaced Kingston to occupy the main market share of communication tablet and low-end box market. In the second quarter of 2014, more module manufacturers were optimistic about EMMC and chose to enter the EMMC market, such as qundong, Shuoda, Weigang and Xinchuang, a control chip factory in Taiwan. However, EMMC of these manufacturers has just been put into the market and has not yet achieved stable mass production. It is expected that it will not have a great impact on the overall market pattern in the second half of 2014.

Looking forward to the second half of 2014, with the recovery of market demand, TLC EMMC products and newly made 1x / 1y products of various manufacturers will come into the market, and the market competition pattern will be more sufficient, and the supply of EMMC will be more healthy. Unlike DRAM industry, the actual suppliers are only three big and one small. The market is actually in a monopolistic atmosphere, and the end customers have almost no bargaining chips.

1.6. Price shrinking: more market demand

Looking at the first half of 2014, the overall market demand was very flat, while there were many EMMC suppliers and the overall supply was relatively sufficient. In addition, TLC EMMC accelerated its penetration into the market, resulting in a significant decline in the overall market price. In the first half of 2014, V 4.51 standard EMMC is still the mainstream of the market, and major manufacturers gradually began to promote the V5.0 standard EMMC.

In the first half of 2014, the price trend of EMMC decreased steadily, with an average decline of about 10% due to the influence of wafer price and market conditions. According to the quotation of China flash memory market network, the price of 8GB fell from $4.55 to $3.88, down 15%; the price of 16GB fell from $7.9 to $7, down 11%; the price of 32GB fell from $18.7 to $16.2, a decrease of 13%. In the second half of the year, with the arrival of the peak demand season, the market contract price has shown signs of rising in July. It is expected that the overall market price will rise slightly in the third quarter and the supply will be sufficient. There are few manufacturers with high capacity of 32 / 64GB, and the price is relatively strong. (Note: EMMC price description is based on average price)

2.5 application of EMMC in Ott box / smart TV market

Different from the flat panel market with saturated demand and slow growth, the box market continues to show a rapid growth trend. It is estimated that only the Chinese market has reached the demand of 1.5-1.8 million units per month, and it is expected to achieve the sales target of 25 million units in the whole year. In addition to free brand box and Internet box, Ott box of operators also shows a rapid growth trend.

In 2013, except for a few Internet brand boxes such as Xiaomi and LETV, the mainstream of Ott box market was NAND TSOP. However, great changes have taken place in the market demand in the first half of 2014. Except for a few free brands and white brand boxes, almost all of them have been transferred to EMMC. Due to the requirement of 24-hour operation, Ott box has high requirements for heat dissipation, continuous read-write and erase life. Especially for the stability of power-off for many times, the traditional NAND TSOP can not fully meet the performance requirements. In the era of m3 / M6 products, AMLOGIC, one of the most mainstream manufacturers in the box market, mainly adopted the solution of SPI nor + NAND TSOP. After the launch of the eight core 802 in 2014, it directly removed NAND TSOP and adopted the EMMC storage mode. In 2014, traditional set-top box chip manufacturers such as Hisilicon and Morningstar also support EMMC. It is estimated that more than 75% of the box market as a whole will use EMMC as storage by the end of 2014. In the box market, the suppliers are scattered, and the brand customers are mainly supplied by Samsung, Toshiba and Shandi. The free brand market is jiangbolong's EMMC and FSD products, with a large market share.

In the smart TV market, it is estimated that the global shipment will be about 60 million per quarter in 2014, and there will be about 250 million sets in the whole year (the forecast includes some white card markets). Among them, the Android platform smart TV market will account for more than 50% of the world. China's market produces about 13-15 million sets per quarter, and is expected to produce about 50 million sets in the whole year (including some white brand markets). Currently, Android platform smart TV accounts for about 40% in China, and it is expected that the proportion will reach more than 50% by the end of the year.

International Smart TV brands Samsung, Sony, LG, together with five domestic brands, Hisense, TCL, Skyworth, Konka and Changhong, account for more than 75% of the total market supply. Emerging smart TV manufacturers are mainly concentrated in the field of Internet manufacturers led by LETV and Xiaomi. LETV has just announced that it has delivered 1 million smart TVs. Xiaomi's sales are unknown, but it is estimated that it will also exceed 200000. The market share of these manufacturers is still very low, but the potential for subsequent development can not be underestimated. It is also possible to create a new world by integrating upstream and downstream resources, especially horizontal integration of new TV media, film and television resources, and operator resources, just like disruptive innovation in the mobile phone field.

According to the official network data statistics, Skyworth will ship about 12 million smart TVs in 2014, of which Android smart TVs account for 40%, with an estimated more than 5 million. Hisense sold 2.5 million units in the first quarter. TCL sold 6.78 million sets from January to May and 1.13 million sets in May, including 380000 smart TVs. Thus, the proportion of smart TV is further expanding.

The main chip solutions of the smart TV platform are Morningstar, MediaTek, releatek, etc. 4GB MLC EMMC is the main storage mode by default, and high-end models have begun to shift to 8GB. Due to the long R & D cycle of TV, customers need to guarantee the delivery mode without changing materials for at least one year, and the product verification needs a period of 3-6 months, as well as stable price and supply guarantee and high quality stability. At present, the main suppliers are Toshiba, Samsung and Meguiar. It is estimated that in 2014, more than 20 million sets of EMMC will be used for smart TV, which has become the fourth largest application of EMMC after smart phones, tablets and Ott boxes.

In addition, EMMC is gradually becoming more and more popular in various industrial equipment applications such as car navigation, learning machine, e-book, game machine, advertising machine, etc. With the popularity of Android system and intelligent devices, EMMC will be widely used.

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